Leishmania mexicana is one of the causative agents of cutaneous leishmaniasis in humans. There is an urgent need to identify new drug targets to combat the disease. Cysteine peptidases play crucial role in pathogenicity and virulence in Leishmania spp. and are promising targets for developing new anti-leishmanial drugs. Genetic drug target validation has been performed on a number of cysteine peptidases, but others have yet to be characterized. We targeted 16 L. mexicana cysteine peptidases for gene deletion and tagging using CRISPR-Cas9 in order to identify essential genes and ascertain their cellular localization. Our analysis indicates that two clan CA, family C2 calpains (LmCAL27.1, LmCAL31.6) and clan CD, family C11 PNT1 are essential for survival in the promastigote stage. The other peptidases analysed, namely calpains LmCAL4.1, LmCAL25.1, and members of clan CA C51, C78, C85 and clan CP C97 were found to be non-essential. We generated a gene deletion mutant (Δpnt1) which was severely compromised in its cell growth and a conditional gene deletion mutant of PNT1 (Δpnt1: PNT1/Δ pnt1:HYG [SSU DiCRE]). PNT1 localizes to distinct foci on the flagellum and on the surface of the parasite. The conditional gene deletion of PNT1 induced blebs and pits on the cell surface and eventual cell death. Over-expression of PNT1, but not an active site mutant PNT1, was lethal, suggesting that active PNT1 peptidase is required for parasite survival. Overall, our data suggests that PNT1 is an essential gene and one of a number of cysteine peptidases that are potential drug targets in Leishmania.
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